Kelli Stuart Presents…….
The next Russian Heritage event will be Saturday, November 18 at 4:00pm at the Russian American Club in Gulfport (2920 Beach Blvd). Our presenter will be Kelli Stuart, the author of Like a River From Its Course, a novel set in World War II Soviet Ukraine.
Kelli Stuart is a storyteller at heart. She graduated from Baylor University with a degree in English professional writing, and a minor in the Russian language. Stuart lived for a short time in Kiev, Ukraine, where she met a woman named Maria Ivanovna, the survivor of a World War II Nazi slave labor camp. Immediately drawn into the fascinating history of the former Soviet Union, Stuart spent ten years researching the effects of World War II on Ukraine. She interviewed over 100 Ukrainian veterans and partisans, and their stories shaped her novel.
Kelli Stuart was an American student who had a life-changing experience after studying abroad in the former Soviet Union. She is the kind of student that we have supported for student exchanges in the past. It is our hope that many members and friends of Russian Heritage will want to hear her story. It may help us to direct our thinking about our student exchange programs in the future. She is just now completing her second novel based in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
Light refreshments including Ukrainian vareniki will be served. A donation of $5 (student rate $2) will cover the cost of the program and refreshments. We hope to see you there. If you are planning to come, and if you use Facebook, please visit our Facebook page and let us know you are coming. You will find many additional interesting features on this page.